Globalisation Psychology

It is the same world where its space vehicles landed on the surface of Mars and on the dark side of the Moon. It is the dazzling world which is playing with the study of the matter. With one hand it holds the microscope and the telescope with the other; wandering from the atom to the galaxy.

 

The Science of Psychology was established, then developed and through long years many sub-branches emerged attempting to put the mind in order and restore the spirit. Scientists and psychiatrists succeeded in developing this thorny field so that psychology occupies a great status in the twentieth century and its existence became inevitable in order to contain the effects of the Industrial Revolution.

 

Now the world has changed. Earth’s human population has become seven billion people and the Fourth Industrial Revolution has entered their lives. There is a momentous event that has occurred in the history of humanity which couldn’t be considered just a development or a progress. That was a radical change in life patterns. It is the invention of the Internet. The world has changed countenance.

 

The “Google” era came then the “Facebook” era, followed by successive and parallel eras. Much of the world has become virtual. Much love and hatred is done without an encounter. Politics and economy are hanging on a click here or a click there. The sins, in their turn, have expanded; crime and terrorism through stratagems of the World Wide Web.

 

The “likes” substituted “achievements”. Virtual victory signs became as if they were real medals placed on the new knights’ breastplates. It is no longer a matter of entertainment and pastime. One fine morning, some were engaged in building states and destroying others through electronic recruitment means. Fools constructed the Islamic state on the mobile phone screens.

 

These activities are paralleled by astounding developments in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI). In the ultra-modern cities, robots deal with patients and the elderly. They also deal with wide sections of people in restaurants, hotels and installations. Robots have also become soldiers in warfare and machines in combat. A whole world has been produced side by side our own. Man isn’t alone in the hospital or in battlefields; there are new ghosts that are sharing life with us.

 

Consequently, numbers of the unemployed have increased. In every year, millions exit the labour market. Economic pressures push 25 million people to the extreme poverty level in the non-developed countries.

 

According to Canadian Economics Professor in Ottawa University, Michel Chossudovsky in his book “The Globalisation of Poverty”, there are appalling forms of poverty prevailing in half of the world societies. However, Thabo Mbeki, President of South Africa, was less optimistic for he sees that the equation of the economy and society in the world is as follows: rich people’s island surrounded with seas of poverty because there are only three rich persons at the world’s ceiling whom their wealth goes beyond the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of 48 of the poorest countries in the world!

 

Many people’s psyches were devastated along with the collapse of their countries’ economies and the incessant stormy technological variables. The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that the number of depressive disorders sufferers is about a quarter million. Social studies centers estimate that the global suicide cases exceed 800 thousand annually. The global number of the depressed is equivalent to that of the USA’s population and the number of those committing suicide is more than twenty times the Principality of Monaco’s population!

 

The globalisation pressures didn’t only affect billions of ordinary people in the South, but it hit other billions in the developed countries. There is a recession in Japan, slowing growth in China and successive crises in Europe. As for the USA, President Trump Donald complained from the negative impact of the globalisation on his country. He said, “Last year we had a trade deficit of almost 800 billion dollars. America has lost jobs and factories after China joined the World Trade Organisation. We won’t abandon American supremacy for the sake of irresponsible world bureaucracy. America is governed by the Americans”.

 

If these are the features of a new era, in which half of the world suffers from the difficulties of life and the second half undergoes the hardship of being superior, the science of psychology is facing an unprecedented novelties; the internet and the AI. The war was for globalisation then the war became against globalisation. Committing suicide due to poverty and committing suicide because of being wealthy.

 

The Greek meaning of psychology is the science of the soul in order to differentiate it from the science of the body. It is also the science of life to distinguish it from the culture of nihilism. This science has evolved to study the mind and behaviour, consciousness and subconsciousness. Moreover, it developed further having sub-branches in the form of Social Psychology, Political Psychology. Some began to talk about the “Cybernetic Psychology”. Others started to speak about “Space Psychology”. While “Cybernetic Psychology” studies mathematics, mechanics and physics, “Space Psychology” is concerned with the study of medicine, biology and the sciences of space.

 

What I claim is the necessity of developing the Science of Psychology in order to establish a new sub-branch called the “Globalisation Psychology”. It is to address the psychological effects of globalisation on billions of people in all the world’s continents.

 

Man hasn’t been more advanced and more miserable than today. The successful lead a mechanical life void of comfort and spirit. The losers live a lukewarm life vacant of contentment and confidence. The swingers – between loss and success – are scurrying over thorns amid strong winds searching for seashore or even half seashore.

 

Social sciences need to establish “Globalisation Psychology” to study what’s new in politics and economics, the Fourth Revolution and the consecutive psychological wars, to study this world where imagination advances and physics retreats.

 

The spirit was broken and the determination smashed. Everybody – both strong and weak – needs he who stops the pain and wipes the tears. Humanity needs a compassionate hand over their heads that gives them serenity after a long way in the journey of pain.